Or how much, Venus, of thy silver heaven
Wouldst thou have yielded, ere Proserpina
Had half (oh! why not all?) the debt forgiven
Which dear Adonis had been doomed to pay ---
To any witch who would have taught you it?
The Heliad doth not know its value yet.
68. 'Tis said in after times her spirit free
Knew what love was, and felt itself alone:
But holy Dian could not chaster be
Before she stooped to kiss Endymion
Than now this Lady. Like a sexless bee,
Tasting all blossoms and confined to none,
Among those mortal forms the Wizard Maiden
Passed with an eye serene and heart unladen.
69. To those she saw most beautiful she gave Strange panacea in a crystal bowl.
They drank in their deep sleep of that sweet wave,
And lived thenceforward as if some control,
Mightier than life, were in them; and the grave
Of such, when death oppressed the weary soal,
Was as a green and overarching bower
Lit by the gems of many a starry flower.
70. For, on the night that they were buried, she
Restored the embalmer's ruining, and shook
The light out of the funeral lamps, to be
A mimic day within that deathy nook;
And she unwound the woven imagery
Of second childhood's swaddling bands, and took
The coffin, its last cradle, from its niche,
And threw it with contempt into a ditch,
71. And there the body lay, age after age,
Mute, breathing, beating, warm, and undecaying,
Like one asleep in a green hermitage-
With gentle sleep about its eyelids playing,
And living in its dreams beyond the rage
Of death or life; while they were still arraying
In liveries ever new the rapid, blind,
And fleeting generations of mankind.
72. And she would write strange dreams upon the brain
Of those who were less beautiful, and make
All harsh and crooked purposes more vain
Than in the desert is the serpent's wake
Which the sand covers. All his evil gain
The miser, in such dreams, would rise and shake
Into a beggar's lap; the lying scribe
Would his own lies betray without a bribe.
73. The priests would write an explanation full,
Translating hieroglyphics into Greek,
How the god Apis really was a bull,
And nothing more; and bid the herald stick
The same against the temple doors, and pull
The old cant down: they licensed all to speak
Whate'er they thought of hawks, and cats, and geese,
By pastoral letters to each diocese.
74. The king would dress an ape up in his crown
And robes, and seat him on his glorious seat,
And on the right hand of the sunlike throne
Would place a gaudy mockbird to repeat
The chatterings of the monkey. Every one
Of the prone courtiers crawled to kiss the feet
Of their great emperor when the morning came;
And kissed-alas, how many kiss the same!
75. The soldiers dreamed that they were blacksmiths, and
Walked out of quarters in somnambulism;
Round the red anvils you might see them stand
Like Cyclopses in Vulcan's sooty abysm,
Beating their swords to ploughshares in a band
The gaolers sent those of the liberal schism
Free through the streets of Memphis-much, I wis,
To the annoyance of king Amasis.
76. And timid lovers, who had been so coy
They hardly knew whether they loved or not,
Would rise out of their rest, and take sweet joy,
To the fulfilment of their inmost thought;
And, when next day the maiden and the boy
Met one another, both, like sinners caught,
Blushed at the thing which each believed was done
Only in fancy-till the tenth moon shone ;
77. And then the Witch would let them take no ill :
Of many thousand schemes which lovers find,
The Witch found one-and so they took their fill
Of happiness in marriage warm and kind.
Friends who, by practice of some envious skill,
Were torn apart (a wide wound, mind from mind) She did unite again with visions clear
Of deep affection and of truth sincere.
78. These were the pranks she played among the cities
Of mortal men. And what she did to sprites
And gods, entangling them in her sweet ditties,
To do her will, and show their subtle sleights,
I will declare another time; for it is
A tale more fit for the weird winter nights
Than for these garish summer days, when we
Scarcely believe much more than we can see.
THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.
AS I lay asleep in Italy,
There came a voice from over the sea,
And with great power it forth led me
To walk in the visions of Poesy.
2. I met Murder on the way
He had a mask like Castlereagh.
Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
Seven bloodhounds followed him.
3. All were fat; and well they might
Be in admirable plight,
For one by one, and two by two,
He tossed them human hearts to chew,
Which from his wide cloak he drew.
4. Next came Fraud, and he had on,
Like Lord Eldon, an ermine gown.
His big tears, for he wept well,
Turned into millstones as they fell;
5. And the little children who Round his feet played to and fro, Thinking every tear a gem,
Had their brains knocked out by them.
6. Clothed with the Bible, as with light
And the shadows of the night,
Like Sidmouth next, Hypocrisy
On a crocodile came by.
7. And many more Destructions played
In this ghastly masquerade-
All disguised, even to the eyes,
Like bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies.
8. Last came Anarchy; he rode
On a white horse splashed with blood ;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.
9. And he wore a kingly crown;
In his hand a sceptre shone;
On his brow this mark I saw-
"I am God, and King, and Law!"
10. With a pace stately and fast
Over English land he passed,
Trampling to a mire of blood
The adoring multitude.
11. And a mighty troop around
With their trampling shook the ground,
Waving each a bloody sword
For the service of their lord.
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